#identity #intercultural #Inclusion #constructivist #complexity
In the Intercultural field we are moving away from the sucking gravity of essentialism and nation-based identity to something far more intricate, transient and interesting – Our cultural identity is now seen as an assimilation of the influences of our collective community and being very much contextual and responsive.
When we are alone, we do not manifest our public identity. The magic within is only truly revealed when we interact with other people, and, this happens in a context and prompts the loading of one of our roles.
Essentialism would have us believe that a border, national laws and a shared language, create something immutable and that this is the currency we exchange with others. But this can oversimplify existence or ignore life at the fringes of our much-repeated model of monocultural mainstream middle-class society.
Now
Your identity is in the moment. It is co-constructed, sometimes as a negotiated contract with those around you. Think of a working project team. Some official rules may even be crystalised in a team charter or a deliberate and agreed set of values.
Or, think of joining in a Congress or your first day at work. When people say, “first impressions counted”, they mean it.
And, do you remember that new colleague saying hello on their first day and rubbing you up the wrong way. You thought they would never become friends. And, being wrong! Later when, like 2 archaeologists, you started to scrape beneath the surface, you found a number of common bonds, and, beyond that, some stimulating and complementary differences too. And now you are #BFF.
Labels
Identity cannot be bound by a single word. It reaches further than and beyond being racialized or labelled for just one important non-dominant characteristic. To limit people in this way, is to be part of the historical oppressors of the other.
Diversity
The very phrase diversity can become problematic. Historically, it represents the diminishing of people as a function of how far away they are from, for example, in Europe, the white Anglo Saxon Protestant male norm.
Interculturalists at work
We interculturalists can be guilty of peddling the story of these norms when we induct expatriate executives, their trailing spouses, and, children, into city life in their newly assigned country. Even as we run the daylong programme, we know that they will have some of their richest experiences on the fringes of that society, making friends with outsiders and characters living at the margins.
The myth of one identity
We do not have one identity. Far from it.
We play many roles in any one month. We react instantly to the space and context we find ourselves in, and, we load the programme, “Values and Etiquette 2.0” to continue. It really is an extraordinary feat. We can adopt 5 , 10 or 12 roles and play them perfectly, with nuance, depth and sincerity.
Spy
We admire fictional spies who rapidly cram and learn their “legend”, putting on a flawless performance, fooling the enemy host, and not getting caught but, we do something similar ourselves, every day.
Mask
An exaggerated example exists in the depressive comedian, turning up their energy, dialling it up to 11 whilst on stage, and, wowing the crowd and making them laugh. Or, the introverted musician, belting out a song containing an intimate emotional confession. Or, a reserved journalist, writing the most dramatic and damning piece about big farmer, big energy, or, big finance.
Socialisation, acculturation and the construction of identity
Who are the parties that helped programme you? Your mother, father, brother, sister, teacher, community leader, favourite boss? These larger than life characters played an enormous role, back in the factory of your formative community, as they helped you encode your CPU – Central Processing Unit with some of THEIR version of the rules of life. “NEVER do X”, “ALWAYS do Y”, etc.
And, the biggest influencer group of all…. your peers. As you reacted and moved away from family dependants, thinking you were negotiating an interdependent and respectful peer-to-peer contract, and, taking up a new role, in your new community, with an understanding based on mutual trust and aid.
In fact, we were all submitting our nascent beliefs and preferences to a committee of Emperor Neros, holding their thumbs up or down, as we presented our various potential life and fashion choices for consideration and a committee vote!
E.g. if you are lucky enough to have a fantastic life partner, ask yourself, who chose them? It was not you alone (unless you eloped and broke with your friends and family.) It was a committee decision, and, the vote went your way!
Terroir
A recent interview with intercultural researcher, Svetlana Buko for the “Dear Captive Audience” channel on YouTube, reminded me of the importance of geography. if you live isolated, halfway up a mountain, you are quite likely to inherit more conservative views. If you live at the border or near a port, you may acquire more than one language, have an outward oriented view and more readily accommodate otherness, or, pursue commercial interactions, as you trade rather than resist the “other”.
Life stages
Just as your context, in any one moment, will dictate the main role you take on in that scenario, you HAVE BEEN and WILL BE a number of distinct and different characters during your lifetime.
You have been a dependant baby.
You have been a playful child.
You have been an exploring and boundary testing young adult.
You have been a working and accumulating, mainstream member of your local, regional and national society.
And, if you have a few grey hairs and you’re reading this, you may now be a guru, giving away your status and ego, to distribute your wisdom, and, the benefit of your experience, to the people that follow.
Identity
So, far from being one thing, to all people, all of the time, and for life, we are all rich and varied vessels, the complicated recipients of the values, preferences and demands of everyone around us.
At short notice, we are able to load up one of our many roles and play that part, like a cyborg / award winning method actor. And, like a theatre director, we help others to perfect their stage character too, so that they can play their part in this small and temporary, off-Broadway production called, “local life”.
Conclusion
Let us stop automatically reducing other people to one, non-dominant characteristic, based role. Let us stop readily or automatically submitting to anyone playing the unquestioned confidence and authority role, inherited from their “superior “community (theatre) as well. Both actions are not useful. And, let us embrace our own variety, richness and exciting possibility as we give plenty of space to all around us to explore and expand their various and varied characters too.
culture99 